Lentil Soup with Home-Pickled Cabbage

Along with chickpeas, lentils are the most popular of the old-world legumes, but lentils require far less time and effort to cook. My mother has made this simple lentil soup all my life, but the idea of adding pickled cabbage came to me recently when I read an ancient and unexpected description of lentils. Described as a food for heroes and warriors, lentils were paired with pickled volvoi, bitter grape hyacinth bulbs—what southern Italians call la